Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Homemade puff paint - an experiment

Way back in May, I posted about my girls' experience with our homemade egg yolk paints. Another type of homemade paint we were able to test out over the summer was this recipe for homemade puff paint.

I used a muffin tin to separate the colors, putting in each cup:

1/4 cup flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

Then I added water to the desired consistency, and also mixed in some food coloring.

My hubby came across these nice large (and extra thick) pieces of paper in a package he had received at work. How thoughtful he was to bring them home for the girls to use for their art! The girls started their paintings by using their brushes.

Then the technique changed to using handprints and splatter painting.

Since we did these on such large pieces of paper, they wouldn't fit into the microwave to puff up the paint like you would normally do. It was such a hot day that we experimented - maybe, just maybe, it would be hot enought to make the paint puff up without the microwave?

After the paint started to dry, I could see that it wasn't going to puff up like it would have if we had used the microwave, but it did leave a cool 3-D texture. An added bonus to this drying method was the extra shimmer from the salt as it reflected the light from the sun.

We were satisfied with the final art pieces, but next time I think we'll have to try drying our artwork in the microwave and watch it puff up.